


Fluttering

by Reikukaja



Series: Life Without the Sun (Jeankasa) [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, Fluff, Mild Sexual Content, Nervousness, Non-Explicit, POV Mikasa Ackerman, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, jeankasa - Freeform, jeankasa weekend 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 06:35:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14636096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reikukaja/pseuds/Reikukaja
Summary: Year 860.Jean is missed when he is away. He is missed by the boy he has come to love like a son, and he's missed by Mikasa even more.Written for Jeankasa Weekend, May 2018.





	Fluttering

**Author's Note:**

> R -- Thank you for all of your help/ideas/suggestions, and for keeping me sane while I wrote this.

_Three days._  

Only three, but it felt like more. Surely, it must have been at least a week?  _Nope_. A quick glance at the calendar confirmed that Jean had been gone for just three days. 

He said he'd be away three or four days, so that meant there was a chance he'd be back today. 

Mikasa had gotten used to these trips over the years. While she'd given up all of her soldier responsibilities after the war, the same couldn't be said for Jean. Multiday periods of absence were nothing new for him. He was one of the few people left alive who had experienced life in the Survey Corps both before and after the people learned the truth of the world beyond the walls. These were experiences that the new recruits needed to hear about. The people of the walls were enjoying a period of peace for the moment, but that didn't mean war would never come again. They needed to be ready. This is why Instructor Shaddis sometimes asked Jean to come talk to his latest batch of recruits. It was important for the soldiers of the future to understand the challenges faced by the soldiers of the past, especially when there had been so much change and advancement in the ten years since the graduation of the 104th Training Corps.  

The recruits all respected and admired Jean. Mikasa was happy that he had found this new purpose in the era following their great war, even if she sometimes believed she had lost hers.  

Being happy for Jean did not mean that Mikasa didn't miss him while he was away though, especially lately. Hopefully, he'd be back tonight. It was that line of thinking that led Mikasa to where she now stood, in front of the vertical mirror in the corner of her bedroom. Soon, Deron would be asking her to start dinner. For now though, Mikasa was just trying to determine a way to salvage her current appearance.  

Her hair seemed like a logical place to start. Jean liked her hair. Mikasa supposed she liked it too, but most of the time she considered it to be too much of a burden and just tied it back. She didn't have the patience to actually style it. 

Reaching behind her head, Mikasa quickly untied the cord that held today's sloppy bun in place. She watched as her hair gently fell over her shoulders and smirked absently to herself. Funny, she thought, that something as simple as undoing her hair could remind her of Jean.  

To say that Jean enjoyed undoing Mikasa's hair would be an understatement. He  _reveled_ in it. How many times had he done that in these last weeks and months? It seemed impossible to count. To be honest, Mikasa enjoyed letting him do it. There was nothing quite like watching the emotions play across his face and the slight quirk at the corner of his mouth when her hair spilled out of whatever lazy style she had worn it in that day. There was an intimacy to the way he looked at her then, as if he were actually undressing her. 

Mikasa's heart fluttered. 

She shook her head when she caught herself blushing in the mirror, grinning like a fool. She realized she'd frozen midway through running her brush through her hair and resumed where she left off.  This happened sometimes. It wasn't like her at all to get caught up in daydreams, but it had been occurring more often lately. Lately, things had just been nice. 

No.  'Nice' wasn't the word. It didn't do it justice.  

'Nice' didn't properly describe the feeling of warmth that washed over her whole body where Jean crept up behind her and entwined his fingers with her own. It didn't capture the pleasant chill that ran through her when she caught him looking at her from a distance. 'Nice' wasn't descriptive enough for when things got heated and she ran her hands through his surprisingly soft mane of hair, or how his stubble sometimes left her face and mouth raw. He always scolded himself afterward, seeing the redness he left behind. He insisted that he needed to shave more, but Mikasa didn't mind.  

'Nice' vastly understated the feeling of security that Jean gave her, and the way her heart swelled whenever she saw him playing with Deron. 

Then there was the way that every day spent without him felt like an eternity. That certainly wasn't 'nice' either. That was something else. 

 Hair sufficiently brushed, Mikasa leaned forward and examined her face. There wasn't much to be done about the dark circles under her eyes, she decided. She briefly considered putting on some make up to make them less obvious. Mikasa  _never_ wore makeup though, and decided it would look strange if she started to do so now. She didn't want to do anything that would be considered strange or awkward.  She concluded that her hair and face were about as good as they were going to look. 

Standing in front of mirrors appraising herself was really not something Mikasa Ackerman ever did, but she was doing it now. There was a time when she looked as if she was made of nothing but muscle, but those days were gone.  She'd grown thin, soft, and sometimes she even looked frail. Whenever she looked in the mirror now, she only saw skin and bones.   

In a way, Mikasa thought she might even resemble her mother, but her memories weren't the most reliable. Of course she remembered her, but she remembered her the way a small child remembers things. She remembered the lightness of her voice, her thin face and kind eyes. She remembered her parents laughing together, smiling.  

Mikasa liked to believe that her parents had loved each other deeply. She wished she knew more about them though, things like how they met or the way that their relationship blossomed. Were they childhood friends who grew to be lovers? Did her mother think that her father was irritating or unrelatable at first? Did she fall for him anyway, as he slowly became one of the people she most depended on? Were they best friends? 

The fluttering in Mikasa's chest returned. She was doing it again, standing there smirking at nothing.  

"Dammit Mikasa," she whispered before dressing herself. She put on a grey blouse and a long burgundy skirt. There was nothing particularly special about the outfit but it was the best she could do. 

A sudden knock came at her bedroom door, a child's knock. 

Mikasa smiled to herself. Knocking on doors was another newly acquired habit for Deron. The boy sure loved emulating Jean, who would always knock at Mikasa's door if he needed something from her while she was shut away.  

"Come in," Mikasa said loud enough to be heard through the door.  

" _Mom_ ," the small boy groaned as he approached and wrapped his arms around her where she stood.  

"What is it, Deron?" she asked kindly, resting her palm on the top of his head.  

"Is dad coming home today?" He whined, looking up at her through his wide eyes.  

"Hopefully," she told him encouragingly. "But remember he said that he would be home late if he comes today. He had stuff to do this morning."  

Deron pouted in response. He seemed to hope that Jean would just magically appear before them any minute now. Mikasa had to admit that she wouldn't have minded that very much at all.  

"Tell you what," Mikasa said cheerfully, crouching down so that she was at eye level with her son. "I'm going to make dinner soon. After we eat, you and I can take a walk – just the two of us. How does that sound?"  

Deron shrugged, despite clearly trying to force a smile. "It'd be more fun with dad."  

 _Ah, the brutal honestly of childhood._  It was exactly the kind of thing a small Eren might have said to Carla.  

"I know," she giggled, unoffended. 

 

* * *

 

Dinner passed without incident or complaint. Deron asked about Jean at least five times and glanced at the front door about twice as often. Mikasa didn't find it annoying, but rather endearing.  

"It's probably going to start getting dark in the next hour or so," Mikasa told Deron as the two of them walked out the door. "So we shouldn't go too far, okay?"  

"Alright!" the boy agreed happily, hopping and skipping so that he was a few paces ahead of her.  

Their home was fairly remote area. They weren't actually that far from Shiganshina, maybe an hour's ride south. Mikasa loved the location. They were close enough to be able to make trips to the city whenever they wanted, but far enough that they got to enjoy quiet moments away from anyone else. She was glad to be having one of those moments just then, taking in the hilly landscape covered in grass and sprinkled with brush and flowers. She silently thanked Eren for picking such a perfect place for them to live.  

Mikasa was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of Deron giggling wildly ahead of her. He was flat on his back in the grass. 

"Did you see it??" he asked, still laughing.  

"See what?" Mikasa asked, feeling guilty. "I'm sorry, I was looking away."  

 "I did a cartwheel!" he told her proudly. 

Mikasa extended a hand to him to help him up off the grass. "Did you really??"  

"I did!"  

"I guess you're just going to have to do another one so that I can see it."  

Deron's face became serious, and he nodded. "I guess I will!"  

Mikasa watched as the boy took off again immediately, running ahead of her. She stood still and snickered into her hand as she watched him plant one hand in the grass, and then the other. As soon as the second hand hit the grass and his feet left the ground, he fell over.  _Not quite a cartwheel._  

"Did you see??" Deron panted from the grass, lying in the same position that she helped him up from previously.  

"You're getting better," she settling herself down in the grass beside him. "But that wasn't a cartwheel."   

"Gah!!!!" Deron grumbled, covering is face with his palms.  

"But you'll be able to do one soon," Mikasa comforted him, leaning back so that her head rested in the grass beside her son's. She closed her eyes for a moment, taking in the sounds of the world around her. 

"Hey mom?" Deron asked after a few moments of silence. 

"Yeah?" Mikasa responded without opening her eyes.  

"Does dad go on these trips because he hates sleeping on the couch?"  

"Of course not," Mikasa opened her eyes and turned to look at her son. "He just has work to do, and things to take care of in cities that are kind of far away. What makes you ask that?" 

"I dunno," he shrugged. "I have a bed. You have a bed. It can't be too comfy sleeping on the couch all the time."  

"He doesn't seem to mind." 

"Maybe he'd stop going away if he had his own bed," Deron suggested.  

"That's silly," Mikasa smiled. "He doesn't leave that often, and I'm pretty sure that he would still need to go away sometimes even if he had his own bed."  

It was probably true that the lack of a bed had nothing to do with Jean's visits to Trost and other districts. That didn't stop Mikasa from suddenly feeling a bit guilty though. Deron did have a point. Jean had been sleeping on her only moderately comfortable couch for more than two years now.  

"What's wrong?" Deron asked, sitting up.  

"It's nothing." 

"But your face just went like this," he squished his face into what Mikasa assumed was supposed to be a frown.  

"Did it now?" 

Deron nodded.  

Mikasa sighed. "I just miss him," she said honestly.  

"Me too," he whined.    

There was a lot to miss, for the both of them. Jean had become a necessary part of their family, an integral part. Jean was a better father to her son than she ever imagined he had the capacity to be.  It was hard to imagine anyone doing better.  Of course Deron missed him. 

Mikasa closed her eyes again for just a moment. Kids were funny, she thought. They start off as these tiny defenseless things, incapable of even eating without help, hopeless communicators. But then they grow up, and before you know it you're sitting in the grass having conversations with a boy you vividly remember keeping you up all night with his screaming, whose diapers you remember changing. Someday too soon, he would grow up completely.  

Mikasa was surprised when she felt the first cold raindrops fall on her face. She opened her eyes to realize that it had gotten dark while they sat there, and that it was starting to rain.  

"Up!" She said with a degree of urgency, using her palms to push herself up from the still somewhat dry grass.   

Deron obeyed without question, and the two of them began to walk briskly back to the house. They hadn't gone too far, but it would still take several minutes to get home if they kept their original pace. 

Halfway back, the rain got worse. What started as a light drizzle became a downpour. Mikasa had to squint to keep her eyes open. Deron held her hand and walked ahead of her, encouraging her to go faster.  

"You wanna run?!" Mikasa smiled despite needing to yell so that she could be heard over the rain. 

"Yeahh!!" Deron cheered.  

The two of them sprinted the rest of the way home. 

Deron collapsed on the couch as soon as they were back inside. Mikasa, still out of breath, fetched some towels and then sat beside her son.  

Deron used one of those towels to dry himself off while Mikasa tried to squeeze the water out of her hair with another.  

"Sorry mom," Deron said sadly.  

"Why are you sorry?" She smiled at him.  

"Your hair looked really pretty." 

"It doesn't anymore?" she joked, fully aware that she probably looked like a drowned cat.  

Deron put aside his towel and rested his head on Mikasa's lap. "Now it just looks wet."  

Mikasa sighed, remembering the uncharacteristic amount of effort she'd put into brushing her hair earlier that day. She was thankful that she had decided against wearing makeup. 

"It's okay," she told him. "I'm glad you think it looked nice though." 

After a few seconds of silence, Mikasa looked down and confirmed that Deron had fallen asleep. Funny how quickly that could happen. 

 

* * *

 

 

"Mikasa?" 

It was a nice way to wake up, she thought: a hand on the shoulder, a whispered greeting.  

"Good morning," Mikasa whispered, flickering in and out of consciousness. 

"It's not even close to morning," Jean laughed quietly and scratched his head.  

It felt like she'd slept an entire night. Mikasa started looking around as she regained her wits.  Where did Deron go? 

"Deron is --" 

"In bed," Jean finished for her, before joining her on the couch. He took the spot that Deron previously occupied, resting his head on Mikasa's lap. His hair was soaked, she realized. 

"You rode in the rain?" she asked, reaching over to grab Deron's towel from earlier.  

"The rain started around when I got to Shiganshina," he told her, but paused briefly when she started to towel off his hair. "I thought about lodging there for the night but I figured I really didn't have that much further to go. Decided I'd just go for it." He shrugged weakly. 

"Well, I'm glad I didn't have to wait until tomorrow to see you." 

"Wait," Jean looked up at Mikasa with a smirk. "Are you saying that you missed me?"  

"I guess so," Mikasa giggled quietly as she watched Jean's smirk widen into that cocky grin of his – the one she had grown all too familiar with. 

"You guess so?" Jean asked, holding a hand to his chest and pretending to be hurt.  

Mikasa just laughed. He seemed to be in a good mood, despite the rain. 

He sat up and continued grinning at her as he cupped her face in one of his hands, the tips of his fingers grazing the nape of her neck.  

There was that fluttering again, this time not the result of a daydream. Mikasa welcomed it. Jean was  _back._ She suddenly felt so silly and weak for missing someone so badly after only a few days, but she didn't care. She was all smiles as she returned his kisses. 

Jean pulled away after a moment. "I knew you missed me," he told her, grinning again. 

Mikasa rolled over into Jean's lap, so that her face was immediately in front of his. "Is that –why you –woke me up?" She asked, interrupting her own sentence as she sprinkled light kisses onto his face and then his lips.  "You weren't –sure if I –missed you?" She finished her sentence by deepening the kiss, willing him to open his mouth for her. 

"Act— ually," he managed to say between kisses, at least somewhat understandably.  

Mikasa pulled back just enough to let him speak. 

"I've been riding most of the day and I'm exhausted," he told her, leaning his head back and resting his eyes for a moment to emphasize the point. "But then I get home and there's not one, but  _two people_ sleeping in my bed."  

Mikasa giggled silently.  

"I swear," he raised both of his hands to his sides and gave her what she assumed was his most innocent smile. "I had a perfectly good reason to wake you up —one that did  _not_ involve needing to find out how much you missed me." 

Jean's eyes said otherwise.  Mikasa appreciated that Jean was such an expressive person. It made him easy to read. He hated when she pointed it out, calling it an unfair advantage she had over him. 

"Pfft," Mikasa huffed, turning her face away in mock frustration. "I don't suppose you missed  _me_ at all then." 

This was a game they played, one where Mikasa pretended that Jean's feelings weren't completely obvious to anyone with eyes and a brainstem. 

"Are you kidding me?" Jean's expression softened. "I think I'd have probably crashed in Shiganshina for the night if I didn't miss you." 

Heat rose up in Mikasa's cheeks and she couldn't help but smile. Jean took advantage of the situation and kissed her again.  and again.  

And again.  

Mikasa grew bolder with every one. "Hey Jean," she breathed after several minutes, her mouth finally free as he began to trail kisses across her jaw. 

"Hm?" 

"You wanna go to bed?" 

"Already?" he glanced up at her. "I know I said I was tired but I— "  

"No," Mikasa laughed quietly. "That's not what I mean." It was the closest thing to a pickup line that had ever come out of Mikasa Ackerman's mouth. The very thought made her feel as if her cheeks would actually catch fire, but she managed to kept her composure. 

Jean stopped what he was doing and froze for a moment as he tried to process what he just heard, allowing Mikasa to climb off of his lap and stand up. She was pleased to note that she wasn't the only one who was flushed. 

"Well?" she asked, extending a hand to help him up. 

"S—sure," he finally croaked, and took her hand. 

Mikasa pulled Jean into her room and quietly shut the door.  

The room was dark, and the only thing that could be heard was the sound of rain hitting the roof and windows. Mikasa fumbled through the things on her nightstand, looking for a match. Jean stood wordlessly by the door and watched as she struck one against the matchbox and it caught fire. She brought it to the lamp's wick and some light poured into the room. It wasn't a lot of light but a lot of light but it was the right amount. Any more would have been too much. She blew out the match and discarded it into a small tin beside the lamp. 

When Mikasa approached Jean again, she wasn't slow in the way she kissed him. She wrapped her arms around his back and kissed him deeply, coming up for air at the same time that she pulled his shirt over his head and discarded it on her floor. 

"Mikasa," he groaned when she started kissing his neck. It was a question. 

Mikasa looked up to see his eyes smoldering down at her. "I missed you," she replied simply, snaking her arms around Jean's bare waist. There was something enjoyable about feeling the way goosebumps appeared wherever her fingers trailed. 

"I ah –" He gasped at her touch. "I missed you too... but I mean I—" 

"and I love you," she finished. 

And there it was. 

She stood there and watched Jean's expression morph –  from confusion to humor to more confusion, to disbelief, to poorly masked joy, and then there was nothing but affection.  

After what felt like so much longer than the couple of seconds that had actually passed, Jean pulled Mikasa into him and any trace of hesitation completely vanished. These kisses were different than the ones she had grown accustomed to over these months. These were the culmination of everything he'd been holding back. 

Mikasa let herself be swept up in it. She almost didn't notice when her own shirt was lifted over her head and disappeared. Where her touches had been soft and delicate, Jean's were the opposite –borderline greedy. It didn't bother Mikasa at all. 

Without pausing, Jean took a few small steps backward, and let himself fall into a sitting position at the end of the bed. He pulled Mikasa over so that she stood in front of him, and proceeded to kiss her bare stomach while his hands squeezed her hips or toyed with the waistband of her skirt. 

Mikasa was painfully aware of her own heartbeat. The unsteady rhythm of it could be felt throughout every inch of her body: her face, her fingertips, her toes, her stomach. Her face she could control, but not this. It was the only thing she could hear besides the rain and the soft sounds Jean's mouth made when it fell upon her skin. 

She inhaled sharply when Jean very smoothly slipped his hands under the waistband of her skirt, and his fingers rubbed her hips underneath the fabric.  

" _God Mikasa,_ " Jean muttered almost inaudibly from where his mouth hovered against her stomach.   

Something possessed her to bury her fingers in Jean's still-damp hair and will him to look up at her, which he did.  

"You ah –" he blinked slowly and swallowed before beginning again. "You're so beautiful." 

It was such a  _Jean_ thing to say. He'd always been a clumsy kind of honest.  

Mikasa's fear began to melt away with the realization that she wasn't the only one who was nervous. There was nothing to be scared of here, and there wasn't anyone alive that she trusted more than the person in front of her. It suddenly didn't matter what Mikasa saw when she looked in the mirror, because Jean thought she was perfect. 

 

Mikasa's heart fluttered. It wouldn't stop until she finally slept. 

 

 


End file.
